Hawesville Council reviews bridge approach timeline, major leak repairs

The Hawesville City Council met Tuesday, Feb. 10, and discussed the Highway 69 bridge approach relocation project and a recent meeting that Mayor Rob McCormick and City Manager Jake Powers attended with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and utility companies.

McCormick said the bridge approach project is ready to be funded now, but AT&T, Kenergy, Atmos and the City of Hawesville are asking the state to wait to release the money until they finish some remaining groundwork and refiguring on some of the changes.

“At the meeting, their last question to me was when I wanted the money to be released. I said I’d like it as soon as possible, of course, but we all agreed on September for a good date to let that happen,” he said. “They felt like that would be a two-year project. I don’t believe Kenergy had a lot they were going to have to move. Atmos had some updates they needed to give everyone to let them know their updated layout. Kenergy had more work at the bottom of the hill than at the top. AT&T and Atmos had more work at the top of the hill. They will let that money out in September or October and that project will start.”

Hawesville Volunteer Fire Department Assistant Chief Jason Bevill, one of the city’s engineers, added that he still has a stack of easements to go through for that project.

Renderings of the project were available for council members to review, illustrating the bridge approach and its new alignment. The approach will come through slightly farther east at the top of the hill than in earlier designs, and Hawes Blvd. will become a dead end at one end once the project is complete. A few of the required easements have already been signed.

Hawesville Police Chief B.J. Burton reported that in the month of January the department received 36 calls for service, including 16 traffic stops, seven citations and three courtesy warnings, issued either verbally or written. He said the goal is to get some “voluntary compliance” on the roadways.

“During the winter conditions, we had three slide-offs, with just one motor vehicle accident report. We reapplied for the Kentucky Office of Highway Safety grant for the seat belt enforcement, so hopefully we get that again this year. Other than that, we’re just going to keep looking for improvements,” Burton said.

Hawesville Volunteer Fire Department Chief Shane Richards reported, “For the month of January, we had 25 total runs for the month. Of those, 17 were EMS runs, three MVAs (motor vehicle accidents) and three structure fires, along with two alarms. There are currently 21 active members on the roster. We have the Green River Firefighters Association Officers School coming up next weekend. We have several going to that leadership school in Owensboro. It’s the biggest school in our area, so we usually send a crew there. We have March 14 set for our annual banquet.”

Richards said the department had its first meeting of the year in January and elected new officers. Richards was reelected chief. Jason Bevill was reelected assistant chief. Coben Capps was elected as the new president, and Justin Ashworth as vice president.

Richards also issued an important reminder on Kentucky’s Forest Fire Hazard Season. The statewide burn season restrictions run from Feb. 15 through April 30, with no burning from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. During an emergency, residents should call 911. For non-emergency concerns or questions, they should call 270-927-1311 rather than using the emergency line.

The Hawesville Volunteer Fire Department is always seeking new members. Those interested may email [email protected], message the Hawesville Fire Department Facebook page or comment on one of its posts, and a member of the recruitment team will respond.

The Junior Firefighter Program is open to youth ages 15 through 17. For more information, email the station.

McCormick provided a report in Superintendent Brian Patterson’s absence. Patterson was absent as he stayed home to care for his wife, who is recovering after having two stents placed following a heart attack.

“Anyone who has driven by Kraftcor or the paper mill (Domtar) saw the ‘swimming pool’ we had dug on the right side of the road. We had a terrible leak. That pipe was cased and was 17-feet underground, I believe. They had to back up and punt and valved off that area from at the top at Indian Lake. It was quite the mess. We were there again on Saturday repairing a 90 (90-degree elbow that changes the direction of an underground pipe),” McCormick said.

The MEGALUG was the part that failed, they said, and decided to go back to the “group rings,” the older bell-restraining harness that uses two split rings and tie rods.

“It seems to be holding well. We hope that maintains that,” McCormick said. “We have also had a terrible leak on Harrison that was a major ordeal in itself. Our guys have been out in the snow and frigid weather, working diligently trying to get these leaks taken care of. I feel like for the most part they did a good job clearing the roads and streets within our city limits. I know there were some driveways left with some piles of snow at the end of them and we addressed that. I had a very good meeting this morning with the team and they understand some of the new things we need to be doing.”

McCormick continued, “We did find out that the courthouse square is not our responsibility. Magistrate John Mark Gray has approached me and said he would like to re-blacktop that and that he would put blacktop speed bumps in like they have at Vastwood Park. He was wondering if the city would take over cleaning that. We have cleaned it for years until this year when the county found out that they own that. We’ll be discussing that at a future date, on if we do want to take that back over. I don’t have a problem with it, if they’re going to blacktop it and resurface the whole area and put the speed bumps in. Our temporary speed bumps, the plow seemed to lift them up when they go through there.”

Powers reported, “On the leak repairs, the one by Kraftcor — we did have the city of Lewisport come in and help us get a flush hydrant installed. That was part of the issue with that line going out because there was nowhere for the air to be relieved. Also, we are progressing with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the project from the April flooding.”

Powers said that he had a good meeting with some of the Green River Area Development District (GRADD) officials earlier in the day on Tuesday, Feb. 10, and that there are some new employees at GRADD. They are getting them familiarized with the projects the city is working on, such as the stormwater project. He said they talked about the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) project, the city park project.

He said they are going to be reaching out to Pamela Jordan, LWCF/RTP Federal Program Specialist at the Kentucky Department for Local Government (DLG) and hopefully getting an update from her on the historic site sign that the city will be putting up in place of the house that was demolished, as it is believed to be the home of Hawesville’s first steamboat captain.

“That is basically the holdup it seems like for the approval from the National Park Service, is that location being a historic site,” he said.

The city received a LWCF grant award of $161,438 and was later awarded with the Government Resources Accelerating Needed Transformation (GRANT) program grant of $156,736, which will cover matching funds on the LWCF grant. The project to build a new park in Hawesville next to City Hall is valued at more than $350,000.

He also reported that Christian Juckett plans to speak with Matt Curtis, city engineer and co-owner of Bluegrass Engineering, and then provide details on potentially refinancing loan AO52, a loan provided by the Kentucky Infrastructure Authority (KIA).

The KIA loans money for infrastructure projects in cities across Kentucky and falls under the Clean Water State Revolving Fund program, aimed at supporting essential wastewater projects, stormwater management and other vital infrastructure improvements.

“That would be potentially an option to refinance that with our new infrastructure. He is going to talk to Matt Curtis about some of those potential funding options and then get back with us and maybe come and speak with us at the next council meeting,” Powers said.

Alissa Brock, who just recently moved to Hawesville with her husband, visited the meeting.

“I’m used to city council meetings being a little more involved with the community than this, so sorry for crashing the party,” Brock said.

“We greatly appreciate you coming,” McCormick said. “If there’s anything we can do, let us know. Where did you move here from? We’re glad to have people that want to attend meetings.”

Brock said, “We moved here from Missouri. We’re military, and my husband is retiring so we decided to retire out here. We live on Indian Hill Road.”

Council members welcomed Brock to the county.

The next Hawesville City Council meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, March 10, at 6:30 p.m. Hawesville City Council meetings generally are held on the second Tuesday of each month.